A Successful 21st-Century Brand Has To Help Create Meaningful Lives

An enormous study of how consumers around the world interact with brands finds that only the companies that make life better for consumers create impactful connections. Plus: The top 10 Meaningful Brands in the world.

Unless you’re making a conscious decision to live off the grid, the vast majority of your day involves interacting with brands and their products. Every decision you—and consumers everywhere from the developed world to the developing world—make in terms of what you buy, what you wear, what you eat, and countless other decisions, is a vote for or against a panoply of multinational companies all vying for your money and attention. A new global survey has identified a key weapon for brands in that battle: Make consumers’ lives better.

It seems obvious, that people would spend their money on things that improve their lives, but it isn’t always the case. "The real story of the global economy is this: institutions aren’t delivering the level of well-being that people want, need, and expect," says Umair Haque, the director of the Havas Media Labs and Harvard Business Review blogger who writes frequently on how business can create real value. "The next global economy isn’t just about stuff, it’s about human lives."

"People want lives that count, resonate, and matter in human terms—and it’s the failure to live that way that leads them to mistrust institutions, instead of respect, adore, and maybe even love them." Plenty of companies provide useless, throwaway goods. Others corporate identities are so tainted that you can’t feel good tying your name and dollars to them. But an increasing group of companies is striving—intentionally or not—to focus on improving lives. It’s these companies that rose to the top of Havas Media’s second annual Meaningful Brands Index, which was released today and features Google in first place, followed by Samsung, Microsoft, Nestle, and Sony. And it’s working: And index of Havas’s Meaningful Brands would have outperformed the stock market by 120% last year.

The next global economy isn’t just about stuff, it’s about human lives.

The fact is that most people don’t care about brands. People surveyed wouldn’t care if 73% brands they used disappeared from their life, a number that remains nearly the same as in last year’s findings. Haque says that this means "that people’s relationship with institutions—mediated by brands—remains broken. The findings from last year, far from reflecting a simple cyclical story of economic upturns and downturns—which come and go—instead point to a deeper story: that as the industrial age model of global growth continues to dwindle, economies are failing to deliver the goods for many people (especially the young, vulnerable, struggling, and middle class)."

It’s important to remember that these brands aren’t necessarily brands that make the planet or society better. A brand can improve a person’s life with great environmental costs, for instance. But that’s becoming less and less true, says, Haque: "Let’s say that you can deliver higher individual well-being—but only by amping up your value chain’s carbon intensity. That’s not really a strategy that’s competitive in 21st-century terms—it’s just another empty tradeoff, that’s going to come back to bite you in the end in both ways, when carbon costs rise, and when people realize those costs must be paid for you to positively impact their lives." Managing those trade-offs successfully may be what makes a truly long-lasting and meaningful 20th-century brand.

Editor’s Note

It’s also important to remember that this is a global list. Sony, but no Apple? That’s because there isn’t an Apple store in, say Jakarta (though one is coming). Sony’s been there for years. People in the developing world, with far less disposable income, have to make much harder choices about the brands with which they choose to interact. Each choice has to provide much more meaning in their lives; there isn’t room for throwaways.

What separates the brands that made this list from those that didn’t? It’s a simple question of philosophy. "CEOs are painstakingly trained to deliver outputs: stuff like slightly better sneakers, phones, or cars. And that’s exactly the problem, not the solution," says Haque. "Because what people are really looking for are outcomes: the real human benefits those outputs results in. … If you’re still seeing your business essentially as a giant factory producing outputs, instead of as a system that creates real, positive human outcomes—you’re still stuck in the industrial age, while the rest of the world, especially your customers, are beginning to take a quantum leap into what I call a human age—an era where a life meaningfully well lived is what really counts."

Your customers are beginning to take a quantum leap into an era where a life meaningfully well lived is what really counts.

So, what should the brands do that aren’t on this list? It’s not as simple as retooling your offerings. You have to change how you think. "That requires rethinking organization, strategy, and especially marketing. It means rebuilding organizations to measure and track human well-being. It means crafting a human strategy, to deliver higher levels of well-being across a company’s constituencies, at two, five, and 10 year intervals. And it means investing in marketing which doesn’t merely promise shinier stuff to people—but ignites higher levels of human potential in them."

Tech companies have had a long run of making life better for their consumers, but as sticky examples like the NSA scandal reveal, or issues around Google Glass, or other examples of the more dark side of technology, the industry is going to have to change how they approach consumers: "People are developing a more sophisticated, nuanced view of tech’s power to impact their lives—for good and not so good. Hence, tech is going to being doing something it’s been pretty uncomfortable doing in the past: not just engineering killer apps, or awesome new products, but learning to engage with people about the messy, complex reality of their imperfect lives."

Can we ever achieve a world of only brands that are positively impacting people’s lives? It seems doubtful. It will always be easy to offer cheap, bad solutions that prey upon consumers (especially as long as government subsidies continue to prop up some of the most disliked sectors like finance, energy, and agriculture). But if these trends continue, the days when this is the norm may be ending. "That’s precisely what the arts of both leadership and entrepreneurship this decade and beyond are about: resolving the dilemmas of the industrial age—not merely choosing one or more of yesterday’s bad choices," says Haque. "Those that can do so successfully will probably build the great brands—and the great institutions—of the 21st century."

It’s important to remember that these brands aren’t necessarily brands that make the planet or society better. A brand can improve a person’s life with great environmental costs, for instance. But that’s becoming less and less true, says, Haque: "Let’s say that you can deliver higher individual well-being--but only by amping up your value chain’s carbon intensity. That’s not really a strategy that’s competitive in 21st-century terms--it’s just another empty tradeoff, that’s going to come back to bite you in the end in both ways, when carbon costs rise, and when people realize those costs must be paid for you to positively impact their lives." Managing those trade-offs successfully may be what makes a truly long-lasting and meaningful 20th-century brand.

And so how is this different from the same argument made 5 or 10 years ago? The trade-off will manifest itself in the business model, not the consumers perception, or at least that's the argument I think is being made. And if that's the case, what is the relevant correlation to a survey all about consumer perception?

Not sure the point of this article, or Haque's POV. What does positively impacting people's minds mean? Seems fluffy and highly amorphous.

And of note is the fact that unaided recall (which drives these kinds of surveys) is driven mostly be awareness, and Wal-mart and Google have far greater awareness than Patagonia or the many of the small companies that are doing truly great and hard work.

I totally agree with Haque's conclusions, no matter how idealist, especially this statement: "If you’re still seeing your business essentially as a giant factory producing outputs, instead of as a system that creates real, positive human outcomes--you’re still stuck in the industrial age, while the rest of the world, especially your customers, are beginning to take a quantum leap into what I call a human age--an era where a life meaningfully well lived is what really counts." Here's the biggest irony of their "Top 10 list" - despite the fact that this was results of the survey - Nestle?? P&G? Microsoft? Walmart??? What Haque should've clarified is that almost ALL of the top 10 are so not even close to making human lives easier or more meaningful, some are doing THE OPPOSITE. Nestle's probably the worst on that list - as part of Big Ag conglomerates, their CEO thinks that water is a commodity that water is not a human right and should be privatized. That's patently insane. What Haque should really do is create at list to "Worst Bottom 10" corporations in the world, which would serve a a lesson to all, and which would easily start with Monsanto, and definitely include Nestle on that list. I'd appreciate if you'd devote a post on those, because what they do is the textbook definition of "choosing one or more of yesterday’s bad choices".

Hi Giorgio, You may be interested in a blog I wrote - 'Re-imagining capitalism the new bottom line'. which is a selection of arguments from our papers and strategy plans on business which puts people first.

It begins with an argument that capitalism makes some people disposable/

A decade ago, our founder fasted for US government to ratify the international covenant on economic , social and cultural rights a covenant that Walmart would never endorse.

Article is such a joke. On what planet is the author living? There must be a lot of unicorns and rainbows and organic cupcakes. On our planet here big corporations run the show, and their goal is to make money. If their products need to be wrapped in "meaningful" or "cute" or "adorable" to raise profits and make the shareholders happy, so be it. As long as it serves the purpose.

As an agency co-founder dedicated to helping brands matter more, it is nice to see this movement of meaningful branding come to life. We have been at it for quite a long time. People want more from brands. Period. The brands that learn how to do this authentically, with leaders who live their reason for being every day and support a meaningful workplace where everyone is aligned around the same vision will thrive. We have authored several white papers on the subject for anyone interested in how we look at helping brands matter more: The Meaningful Workplace: http://www.emotivebrand.com/th... and The Age of Meaning: http://www.emotivebrand.com/th... are two of our top papers. I am glad to see more of this thinking in traditional publications. Thanks for writing this Morgan.

An idea - let's stop using the word consumers. It dehumanizes people and will always create an "us vs them" me reality. It's based on a word created from a disease (consumption was the initial name for tuberculosis) and infers that a person's primary identity comes from the purchase and use of products and services. We won't move into an economy focused on human capital/wealth while we still use words and taxonomies that keep people confined to an older paradigm of thought.

Ideas: "creators" versus "consumers." Any other thoughts? The brands that come up with these words, that allow people to feel liberated from the word "consumer" will gain a lot of trust and value.